


Diversion

by MaggieBee



Series: Doctor-Patient Confidentiality [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, at least she's trying bless her heart, harley sucks at her job let's be real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 11:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8576494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggieBee/pseuds/MaggieBee
Summary: She knew that she wasn't supposed to come any closer, but that didn't mean she didn't want to.





	

“Good afternoon.”

There was no response as she walked into the therapy room, which was by no means a surprise. She imagined she could hear him mutter something under his breath, which wasn’t out of the ordinary either – he was mumbling to himself so often, she had given up trying to understand what he was saying.

When she took her place behind her desk, she immediately felt his eyes on her. It had freaked her out at first, the way he seemed to be able to pierce right through her with his stares, but she had gotten accustomed to it over time. What did they say? The eyes were the windows to the soul – she’s never really taken that one very seriously, at least not until she’d first stared into his. Dark as they were, it might as well be true. She immediately scolded herself; thinking of her patient as having a ‘dark soul’ was neither a clinical approach nor was it helpful in any way. He was still staring.

She noticed the corner of his mouth twitching for just a millisecond, and she already knew what that meant. It looked like she was in for a lecture today. He had his moods and they changed from day to day, from talkative to brooding or even pissed off, yet there was one thing that rarely changed, and that was the fact that he liked hearing himself talk. He was a performer at heart, and being chained down and robbed of any excessive movement did not stop him from making use of his voice.

His mouth twitched again and she cocked her head, silently encouraging him to share whatever wisdom was sprouting in that mind of his.

“ _Harley_...”, he drawled, drawing her name out in that way only he knew how to, “aren’t you just... _tired?”_

There was a tiny voice in the back of her head telling her that she should correct him – “ _for the millionth time, you_ are _supposed to address me as Dr. Quinzel” –_ but there was just something about the way he’d said her name that made her keep quiet for once.

She regretted that decision only seconds later – how was she ever going to pretend she had any authority here if she let him get away with everything? But then again, he’d only called her ‘Harley’ and not one of the colorful nicknames he usually came up with. She could let this one slide, right?

Only then did she realize that she wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying, and quickly fumbled for a pen to at least pretend she was keeping track of his words and doing her job.

_Great counseling, Harleen. Way to make your patients feel validated._

He was too lost in one of his speeches to notice her mental absence either way, and she slowly put the pen down again, watching him instead.

She wasn’t able concentrate on what he was talking about – it was probably murder anyway – because his eyes were distracting her again. They were roaming the room while he kept monologuing, seeing everything and nothing all at once.

He chuckled suddenly, his eyes met hers and she was hit by the sudden white-hot panic of having been caught. _Been caught doing_ what _? You’re his doctor; you’re_ supposed _to watch him._ Still, he seemed to know that her mind had been anywhere but with his words. The obnoxious grin on his face was evidence enough.

She stared at him for a moment when he refused to look away or keep talking, and then she cleared her throat.

“You were sayin’?”

He laughed again, a high-pitched sound of utter glee, and her cheeks immediately started to burn. _Caught, caught, caught._

“I’m sorry”, she managed to say, “I wasn’t- I mean, you were – I-“

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._

He mockingly raised his eyebrows at her.

“Say, pumpkin pie”, he said in the most syrupy sarcastic voice she’d ever heard, “were you not paying attention?”

She thought about defending herself for a moment, realized it would be futile right after and settled for regaining her authority instead. _Who are you even kidding at this point, Harleen?_

“Dr. Quinzel,” she said in the most assertive voice she could muster, “we talk about this every week and it is _not_ appropriate for you to call me-“ she paused for a moment, realizing she neither wanted to give him the satisfaction of repeating his words nor provide him with a loophole, “- _anything_ except for Dr. Quinzel.”

He seemed oddly pleased with himself.

_Of course he’s pleased with himself, he’s basically running the show here._

“Don’t worry, _Dr. Quinzel”,_ he said, his voice thick and heavy with sarcasm, “I won’t tell anyone you’re having trouble keeping your pretty, little head focused.”

Her face heated up again, and she couldn’t quite tell if it was because of his obvious mockery or because he had just very shamelessly called her pretty.

She quickly scolded herself that she definitely should not be flattered by anything he said, reminded herself that his words were always either mockery, manipulation or both, and with a deep breath she attempted to regain control over the situation once more.

“I’m very sorry”, she repeated, “I seem to have trouble concentratin’ today.”

He laughed again, quieter this time, as if he was amusing himself with some private inside joke she wouldn’t understand even if she tried. The chains that secured his wrists to the floor clattered dangerously, and for the thousandth time she was thankful for his thorough restraints. He was too much to bear as it was, she could go without having to worry about her safety. They had settled for simple handcuffs at the beginning, she still remembered that, and he had choked one of his earlier therapists to death with them as soon as he had lulled them into a false sense of security. Yes, Arkham wasn’t taking these kinds of risks anymore, so chained to the floor it was. Thank God. Even if the choking part didn’t seem all too off-putting, it was the ‘to death’ part she could gladly go without.

_Very professional train of thought, Harleen._

Oh, and she was sure he wouldn’t hesitate to come at her, if he had the chance. He had that look in his eyes from time to time – pure venom with that hint of restlessness that made her sure he would pounce any second if nothing had been holding him back.

With a jolt she realized that the thought was scarily arousing.

_That’s it; you’ve lost it. Might as well get yourself a nice padded cell next to his._

He had gone from lecturing her to muttering to himself, just as absent-minded as she was all of a sudden, and she was almost relieved. No matter what she did, she was obviously not able to focus today, so she welcomed a few minutes of his muttering, where he didn’t expect her to listen. Not that she could if she wanted to, she had no idea what it was he was uttering to himself so mischievously.

His legs were stretched out as far as they would go without the chains stopping him and they almost reached the yellow line that they had painted all around her therapy couch to make it very clear how close she was allowed to come. Not that she had ever considered coming any closer than she was right there behind her desk. Okay, maybe she had _considered_ – but she had never actually planned to go through with any of the careless thoughts that sometimes crossed her mind.

It wasn’t like she had a dying wish after all.

She looked down onto her notepad to read what she had written down so far, and wasn’t surprised to see that it wasn’t more than a few sentences of gibberish (what had she even been trying to _say_?) and a bunch of doodles that filled the entire bottom half of the page. Her cheeks heated up again while she hastily crossed out the few hearts and smiley faces she had drawn between squiggles and twirls.

_Good luck explaining to your boss how that is in any way relevant to your work._

The Joker was resting his head on the back of the couch now, looking up at the ceiling. His feet were still stretched out, and not for the first time she marveled at how tall he was. It wasn’t something she had noticed right away, because she only ever saw him sitting on a couch in her office, where his chains made it impossible to stand up straight. But she was pretty sure that if they stood across from each other and she wasn’t wearing her usual heels, the top of her head wouldn’t even reach his shoulder. The sudden mental image of the Joker towering above her, leering down at her sent a cold shiver down her spine.

He was still stretched out, seemingly absent-minded. His eyes were open though; she believed to see him blink. Gnawing around on her lower lip, she enjoyed this rare opportunity to just watch him without being watched in return. Usually he didn’t take well to her staring at him, and she had to endure words of mockery every time her eyes lingered for just a few seconds too long.

All of a sudden his head snapped back forward so unexpectedly, she jumped in her desk chair before she could stop herself. Tightly gripping the armrests of her chair she glared at him, while he began to chuckle.

“You should have seen your face” he laughed gleefully, as if he had just played an unbelievably great practical joke on her, “say, did ya see a ghost, cupcake?”

She attempted to compose herself, sat up straight and tried to calm her fast beating heart.

_You never learn, do you? He’s watching you even when he’s not._

Flustered and embarrassed, she pretended to write something down, while she hoped he couldn’t see how red her face was.

“You startled me” she finally said, not looking at him but rather down at her notebook, even though she was writing down the lyrics to some Britney Spears song she could not remember the name of. Anything was better than looking at him right now, mostly because she was sure he was still silently laughing at her.

“Oh no, did I?”, he chuckled, and his chains clattered to accompany his high-pitched laughter. Then, his voice dropped an octave and he assumed a much more menacing tone.

“It’s not polite to stare at people.”

A chill ran down her spine and she looked up slowly, immediately intimidated by the way his eyes pierced through her, even though she had expected it.

“I’m sorry”, she said, doing her best to make her voice sound as assertive and competent as possible, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

By the way he kept grinning at her she figured she must have sounded about as pathetic and meek as she felt.

Avoiding his stare once more, she shuffled her papers around on her desk and tried to think of a way to turn this back around and conduct actual effective therapy.

_Actual effective therapy - as if that has ever happened in here._

Before she could produce a string of carefully crafted, professional sounding words to remind him who was supposed to be in charge, there was a sharp knock on the door. The two security guards that ripped the door open only a second later had obviously not intended to wait for a ‘come in’.

“I’m very sorry, Doctor Quinzel, but we need to borrow the clown.”

The Joker raised his eyebrows in obviously feigned excitement.

Harleen stared at the security guard for a while and thought about scolding him for interrupting her therapy session so rudely, but then she looked down at her notebook.

“No worries, I think we’re done here” she mumbled, defeated, while she quickly covered the doodles and Britney Spears lyrics with her patient’s file.

The Joker looked amused at her admitted defeat and then annoyed as soon as the guards began to fumble around with his chains. She found just the tiniest little bit of joy in his discomfort, but made sure it didn’t show on her face when she got up from her chair.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then” she said with a smile that was a little smugger than she had intended.

"Oh _I'm_ looking forward to it" he said sarcastically while the guards led him out of the room. 

But Harley liked to think there was some truth in everything he said. 

**Author's Note:**

> Would ya look at that, I actually wrote a follow up piece to Distraction. I'm thinking of writing a third one, but considering my writing speed it probably won't be done until 2020 let's be real.


End file.
